A Hundred Days of Gratitude

By Claire Suyen Grace

A personal journey through a hundred days of actively giving gratitude for the little and less little aspects of our lives. From the pragmatic to the esoteric, each day gives us a pause for thought and shows us that, by the end of the journey, Life is always worth the living of it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Suyen Talken-Sinclair
• Release date: Sep 10, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201411862

Claire Suyen Grace

Suyen lives in Devon, aka Paradise, with a motley assortment of horses, dogs, cats and pot plants. She is a true Renaissance Woman who is never unaware of just how lucky she has always been. Her childhood was split between living in Africa and attending boarding-school in the UK, with the odd road trip in between. The combination provided an eclectic mix of characters and experiences from which she says she has never recovered. Her desire to become a vet led to a lifetime's involvement with animals of every type, and to work with NGOs such as Four Paws and the Princess Alia Foundation. A mother of two and with five grandchildren, Suyen now works full time for the local Children's Services, teaches Chinese Cookery, paints, rides and has just qualified as a Life Coach.

Book preview

INTRODUCTION TO A HUNDRED DAYS OF GRATITUDE...

Back in 2019 I was inspired by my friend Jools’ Days of Appreciation, and decided to set up a Facebook page titled A hundred days of gratitude, like Garcia’s Solitude but not, so to speak.

The idea was to recognise one thing every day for which I am grateful, and to share it, sometimes with an anecdote and sometimes without.

I hoped the idea would spread out through my friends like ripples on a pond since it is often easy to focus on our troubles and woes without remembering how they may be a Life Lesson, and also to overlook reasons to be grateful.

With that in mind I selected thirteen friends at random to join me-but hoped that everyone reading would start focusing on being full of Gratitude for the lives we have.

The hundred days was scheduled to end just before Christmas, a fitting conclusion I think, to a meditation that celebrates our good fortunes.

This book is the result of those musings, they are mine and mine alone, and i take full responsibility for the views expressed herein.

Namaste.

Recent Reviews from 2020 Vision- The Wisdom of Hindsight

The book definitely resonated in a positive way....... It touched and met my soul, which is a very rare thing for me. It also resonated with me as a woman and as a mother and in so many other ways. And I have enormous respect for the work you do to try and rescue animals....... I wanted to know more about you and the other people who do it. I hope we will meet one day once Australia opens its borders.

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It will make an awesome movie.

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Very powerful indeed and you write so beautifully! Both cathartic and powerful... an incredible story.

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Loved the book! Well done you!

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Your book resonates so strongly with me... I am sixty, and have an adult son at home who is struggling ... It touched and met my soul, which is a very rare thing for me... It resonated with me as a woman, and as a mother, and in so many other ways... I am taking the time to adsorb your words, and delighting in it.

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I found the book deeply moving...a beautiful read. Thank you.

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I am feeling emotionally exhausted from reading it ! I have laughed and cried, felt pangs of longing and desire and everything in between. It is fantastic... So many of those close your eyes and savour the moment....in this wonderful, beautiful book. Bravo.

A Hundred Days of Gratitude

Day 1- Being Fat

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Because only people who can afford to buy the food they need or want have the luxury of being overweight.

I wrote this somewhat tongue in cheek, but then i began to think about it.

Fat is not always caused by overeating of course, sometimes there are medical considerations that impact upon gut health and adsorption. There are also a plethora of mental health issues that impact upon lives via addictive behaviour, and i recognise that.

Nonetheless, being able to have food to eat at all is a blessing, one often taken for granted in the world we live in.

Day 2- A Comfortable Bed to sleep in

A comfortable bed to sleep in....

When I was a child, I went to boarding school in Sussex; loved it. Living in Liberia I spent term time holidays with my grandmother most of the time.

She lived in a very rundown 17th Century Welsh farm-workers cottage- no mod cons- hot water came out of a kettle and heat from a tiny coal fire. The walls really were over two feet thick and in winter the damp made your bones cold.

I used to share a bed with Nana.

The beds were old with brass bedsteads and made from chain link. The mattresses were feather filled and extremely cumbersome to move- every morning Nana and I would have to lift, toss and pummel the mattress to separate the feathers back into shape, and every night Nana would fill old glass pop bottles with hot water and cover them with a sock to heat up the bed. The heat made the damp palpable.

Nowadays I don’t need to do any of that before collapsing into bed. I just lie down, pull my duvet up and sleep. In the warm, dry place that is my room.

Others are not so lucky. Others sleep on pavements, in carparks, under bridges, in storm drains, in ditches.

At this time of year in the Northern Hemisphere the cold and damp of winter is increasing.

And some of those people, who were once children themselves, will die in the only places they can find to sleep in.

Day 3- Tweezermans

Tweezers... the one luxury I’d request on A Desert Island Discs!!

Such vanity.

Vanity in our appearance is a two edged societal sword.

Should we dress up? Should we dress down? Should we care about our appearance? Should we not?

Does it really matter how we appear to others? Should it matter?

People definitely make judgements around how we look- should we let that effect our well-being and influence our appearance?

Tweezers- would be lost without them! LOL

Day 4- Sunny Mornings

It’s an amazing bright, sunny morning today in Brigadoon.

I’ve always had a deep connection with Apollo, the Sun God- not due to any mystical teachings but just because I started talking to Apollo years ago and was blessed with sunny days as a result! Now we’re taught that we create our own vibrational reality, so I’m grateful if mine is a sunny one!

Several decades ago in South African, I was due to get married at the end of January- their mid summer. It rained every weekend for the weeks preceding the date- but on the last day of the month the sun shone all day.

People were amazed- I kept saying that it was sunny because I’d invited Apollo to my wedding, and he came.

Day 5- Modern Plumbing

Travel, it is said, broadens the mind.

Well, that’s just as well since I’ve seen some pretty ignorant tourists in my time!

Travel exposes you to different cultures, different norms and mores, different values.

Those of us who have travelled in countries where water is scarce will be familiar with the joys and challenges of trying to stay balanced in a semi squat while desperately hoping your aim is better than the environmental odours that accompany outside hole in the ground toilets!! My worst was at a zoo in the Ukraine where one simply balanced on the edge of a precipice and aimed behind you over a ditch....

Travel opens one’s eyes.

At that particular zoo, animals were bred and sold illegally to line the pockets of the manager.

The state of the bear pens was heart- breaking, as were the living conditions of all the animals.

Every morning an old man would appear to feed the bears- on a bucketful of porridge. Nothing else, nothing more.

You could be forgiven for asking yourself how a zoo keeper would tolerate animals being kept in such hellish conditions.

One afternoon he came to me and asked, through a translator, if I could help his wife. She had